Sacred and Profane Uses of the Ganges

Geilt posted an interesting blog entitled, "Worship- Imposing Vanity on the Supreme Being" where he pointed out the self-serving function of ritual (that is, the divine does not need it, we do it for ourselves). Swami Agnivesh's comment regarding the religious component of pollution in India's famous holy Ganges River, which he made at the Climate Week (TckTckTck) event I attended came to mind (see article).  Water is considered a sacred natural element in so many of the world's religious traditions and often plays a central role in ritual.
In Daoism water is considered the strongest of the natural elements because it embodies  the principle of wu-wei (non-action): it is strong because it yields incessantly. Water is often revered for its ability to cleanse, to embody, to carry intentions and prayers in its flow.
 However, in many cultures the sacred and profane use of water is complicated by the fact that one source is used for both functions. This issue is illustrated in the case of the Ganges River, which is the source of spiritual liberation as well as the community bathing and laundry site and the drain for industrial runoff.

Here is a photo of the Ganges taken from my hotel room in Varanasi,

Swami Angivesh (Arya Samaj) calls for the refurbishing of Hindu rituals such as the Asthi Visarjan Ceremony, where one's ashes are scattered in the Ganges as a final act of moksa, or liberation. Many partially cremated bodies are thrown into the river and this is a cause of pollution as well as an example of the misunderstanding about how to revere the spiritual power of the river known as Mother Ganges.
Other Hindu leaders, especially the coalition of Hindu leaders known as Save Ganga Movement, do not identify ritual pollution of the Ganges as the central problem, and point instead to the governmental lack of regulations regarding dams and industrial waste pollution.
There is a need to recontextualize the way humans treat non-human nature in both ritualized and non-ritualized contexts, which both serve their own ends.

Please share your thoughts, comments, or any relevant news on this subject in the comments section below.

Religious Leaders Join Together for Global Climate Change

Imagine churches, temples, synagogues, ashrams, and mosques all around the world calling their followers to prayer with the sound of a ticking clock to remind them of the urgent need to address climate change today. "Tck, Tck, Tck" is the central slogan for this year's Climate Week NY˚C because time IS of the essence. As part of the campaign this year to push for real CHANGE in global climate policy at the upcoming COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, Religions for Peace, the oldest multi-religious coalition, brought together religious leaders from diverse traditions to express solidarity and urge government leaders to take action for improved global climate policy. I had the honor of attending the Religions for Peace "High-Level Consultation of Senior Religious Leaders on Climate Change," co-sponsored by the Global Campaign for Climate Change and hosted by the British Consulate General.

The main theme of this dialogue was environmental stewardship, and each religious leader's statement re-energized this classic religious concept using their own traditions. His Holiness Tep Vong, the Supreme Patriarch of the Buddhist Sangha of Cambodia integrated the Buddhist teaching of karuna, or compassion, as the necessary change of heart that will inspire us to love nature and change our over-consumptive lifestyles. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John O. Onaiyekan, focused on the Christian model of stewardship that sees creation as a gift, "God gave us this planet as our habitat … that we keep it well" and highlighted the common ground shared by all religions as members of "a global village." Indigenous Priestess Beatriz Schulthess of the Kolla Nation (Argentina) emphasized the native teaching that all of nature is interconnected and drew the vital link between massive poverty, ecological devastation, and unjust resource allocation, "it is the ones who are poor who actually feed the big cities." Swami Agnivesh, Hindu leader of the World Council of Arya Samaj, called for more ecologically sound rituals to replace religious practices that pollute natural reserves such as the Ganges River because, the "Creator is [in] Creation." French-Tunisian Muslim Religions for Peace activist Mehrézia Libidi-Maiza critiqued the Keynesian economic model of scarcity and insisted that "we have to work together to find the resources" that manifest a religious model of abundance.

Why should secular government leaders listen to religious leaders? In the case of climate policy, it may be more a matter of dollars and cents than faith. United Nations Assistant Secretary General, Olav Kjorven, pointed out that religion remains central to government policy even if the focus of climate policy remains largely economic because religious institutions represent the "third or fourth largest actors in the financial world." As the clock continues to tick towards COP15 this December, how will faith-based communities activate the grassroots message of their members to affect environment and social justice for a climate policy worth believing in?

Abstract for my 2009 M.A. Thesis

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Miami, Florida

2009

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AND THE FATE OF THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON: A CASE STUDY OF THE MADEIRA COMPLEX

by: Karyna Do Monte

The present paper analyzes a case study of the Madeira Complex, which plans to build two massive dams on the Amazon River’s largest tributary, to identify religious discourse in ecological debates. Three sides of the debate are investigated in order to analyze the various perspectives of proper human relations with the rest of nature that emerge. The Brazilian government and large corporations support the project as a necessary step to meet future national energy needs, the indigenous groups settled in federal territories that are directly affected by the environmental impact of the project have mixed opinions, and environmentalist organizations starkly opposed to the project because of its impact on the environment. Each perspective reflects a Christian model of stewardship, where humans are responsible for the management of the rest of nature, and even the indigenous worldview adapts this dominant perspective in order to gain visibility in the debate. This debate reveals how the stewardship model can be a subtle form of neo-colonization of indigenous people and of ecosystems.

Committee Members: Whitney Bauman (Major Professor), Christine C. Gudorf, and Oren B. Stier

Jain Missionaries and Ecology

I will present my findings on the following topic at the American Academy of Religion Annual 2009 Conference in Montreal:

This paper analyzes the ecological discourse in the Terapanth Svetambara Jain saman order's missionary expeditions in the West. The saman order is a unique mendicant order instituted in 1980 by the late Terapanth leader, Acharya Tulsi, as a vehicle for spreading both Jain teachings as well as a spiritual curriculum known as Jeevan Vigyan, or Science of Living. Over one hundred samans currently teach Jeevan Vigyan in community and academic settings in Europe and North America. These courses highlight ecological issues of overpopulation, poverty, pollution, and ecological devastation as negative manifestations of social and individual disease. The Jeevan Vigyan curriculum is based on a sectarian, secular interpretation of Jain doctrine. Samans seek to engage diasporic Jains and non-Jains alike in order to promote ahimsa, or non-violence, through changes in daily lifestyle.

Samans are working to propagate a change of lifestyle in the West regarding diet, over-consumption, and economic activities, i.e. a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Samans and the Jeevan Vigyan curriculum both explicitly claim to be non-sectarian and to present a universal spiritual value system that it is the most effective solution to current socio-ecological problems. The underlying claim of this missionary enterprise that positive global change begins with individual transformation will be evaluated.

I briefly compare ecological discourse in the saman movement and the Jeevan Vigyan curriculum with Western ecological discourse on environmental problems to identify whether this Jain movement is limited to issues that pertain to their religious beliefs and spiritual goals. Also, I investigate to what extent the saman movement involves itself in Western ecological movements and vice-versa. In short, this paper analyzes the Jeevan Vigyan curriculum used in saman missionary enterprises to determine whether its ecological component is better understood as a tool to facilitate Jain evangelism, an authentic component of Jain religious tradition working to increase visibility in Western ecological discourse, or a form of secular Jainism that proposes a comprehensive argument for sustainable human-earth relations.